After a month of fighting in Gaza and the onset of another surreal ceasefire, debkafile’s sources clue in those readers who are understandably a bit baffled about the war and where Israel stands: Although a five-day ceasefire was announced in Cairo Wednesday night, neither Israel nor Hamas had by Friday, Aug. 15, officially acknowledged a truce is in place. Obama and Netanyahu continue to lock horns as Jerusalem runs the war without Washington’s input. As for the conflict's end, every effort at diplomacy with the Hamas terrorists has so far fallen flat.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and Saudi Arabia are pushing Netanyahu to go for the full-scale ground incursion against Hamas in Gaza that he doesn’t want, while the Israeli prime minister continues to keep the US out of his decisions.

The confusion reigning Thursday morning, Aug. 14, was stirred up by contradictory words and actions around the latest truce mirage in the Gaza war. Hamas rocket fire started two hours before the last 72-hour ceasefire was scheduled to end Wednesday midnight, and continued up until 2 a.m. Thursday – namely before and after PLO-Ramallah envoys in Cairo and Egyptian officials announced a new five-day ceasefire, which Hamas-Gaza denied. No Israeli official was available to confirm or deny. The Israeli air force hit back for Hamas rockets. Indirect talks will “apparently” resume in Cairo Sunday.

The seventh truce in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict is generally expected to end Wednesday night Aug. 13, with fresh hostilities triggered by Hamas rockets. The Cairo talks never got off the ground because the gaps between Israel and the Palestinians were unbridgeable, and the Palestinian team was moreover divided against itself. This time, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon are preparing broad action in response to Palestinian rocket fire. They know that the public and the army too have run out of patience with half-measures.

In response to Egyptian mediation, Israel is ready to shrink the security zone inside the Gaza Strip by 200 meters, provided the Palestinian Hamas observes a further 72-hour ceasefire going into effect at midnight Sunday, Aug. 10, debkafile reports. And if the truce holds overnight, Israeli negotiators will return to Cairo Monday morning to resume the talks interrupted by Hamas rocket fire Friday. debkafile further reports that Israel may also allow Gaza Strip to have a seaport at some time in the future, in return for the territory’s demilitarization.

While different in many ways, the campaigns waged by the US in northern Iraq against Al Qaeda’s IS, and by Israel in Gaza against Hamas, share common features. President Obama won’t put US special forces back in Iraq and, for very different reasons, Israeli leaders abstained from sending special forces deep inside the Gaza Strip to eliminate the Hamas high command and its main rocket stocks. Both have fallen into the same error of relying on air strikes to eliminate Islamist fundamentalists on the march. And so neither conflict will end soon.

debkafile reveals exclusively the terms Israel handed in to the Cairo talks Wednesday Aug. 6 for a durable peace in the Gaza Strip. In the document Shin Bet Director Yoram Cohen put before the Egyptian intermediaries, the first key condition is based on the Oslo 2 Accords, which restricted Palestinian security officers in the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria to bearing only light firearms. The second condition would grant the Israeli military freedom of action to strike tunnels designed for terrorist attacks and demolish plants manufacturing missiles.

As Israeli envoys arrived in Cairo Tuesday, Aug. 6, on the first day of a 72-hour Gaza ceasefire, government spokesmen went to great lengths to convince the public that the fighting was over and the enemy seriously degraded. debkafile: But Hamas though badly hit was not vanquished, its command level survived and the core of a Palestinian army has emerged. Al Qaeda, from its new battle arena in Lebanon, and Iran, too, drew their own conclusions from the way the IDF was held back from bringing its successful operation to victory.

Israel and Hamas were due to open talks under Egyptian aegis for a long-term ceasefire after the start of a 72-hour Gaza truce Tuesday, Aug. 5, at 8 a.m. debkafile: Israel’s consent to this arrangement flies in the face of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s solemn pledge 48 hours earlier to continue Operation Defensive Edge for as long as necessary and have no truck with Hamas. “No accommodation, only deterrence” was the motto of Aug. 2. This credibility gap generates Israel’s first major internal refugee problem as ghost communities form along the Gaza border.

While withdrawing the bulk of its ground troops from the Gaza Strip, the IDF has been quietly carving out an off-limits cordon sanitaire just inside the Gaza border. It is designed to be controlled from the outside by special forces and armored units on round-the-clock alert to bar hostile infiltrations and equipped with a battery of firing posts, sensors and drones. The strip runs 65km from Beit Hanoun in the north to Khan Younis in the south (see map). Israel has turned to acting unilaterally in respect of its own security needs rarther Hamas' price for a truce.

As the first Israel troops pulled out of Gaza Saturday night, Aug. 2, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pledged that Operation Defense Edge would continue until security and calm were restored – however long it takes. But in his televised news conference, he also said: “The IDF will deploy according to the needs of Israel’s security – and only Israel’s security.” debkafile: The new slogan signals a switch to a unilateral policy and a decision to redeploy the bulk of Israel’s ground troops outside the Gaza Strip in offensive formation – even before achieving all its goals.

Hamas’ military wing claimed Saturday, Aug. 2, to have lost contact with the abductors of 2nd lt. Hadar Goldin and believes they were all killed in the subsequent Israeli bombardment of Rafah. All Friday night until early Saturday, Israeli jets, tanks and heavy artillery continued to pound parts of the town. The Palestinians say they lost 150 dead – 70 in Rafah. Regarding the Cairo talks, Israel notes that Hamas has proved six times that any ceasefire deal it signs will breached and the lull used for surprise attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians.

Israel informed US Secretary Kerry Friday, Aug. 1, of its withdrawal from the 72-hour truce after gross Hamas violations which peaked in an attack on an IDF tunnel team in Rafah in which two soldiers were killed and Israeli Givati officer, 1st Lt. Hadar Goldin, 23, from Kfar Saba, was abducted. The White House condemned the Hamas violation as “barbaric.” Hamas also breached the truce with a score of rockets and mortar shells. IDF tanks, artillery, air force and special forces retaliated in southern Gaza. Hamas and Islamic Jihad report many dead.

Mohammed Deif is rarely seen in public and has survived several Israeli assassination attempts, but the Hamas military commander has final say in all decisions and is running the Gaza war from his hideout.

The Israeli Air Force destroyed 40 mosques converted into rocket and arms stores inside Gaza Tuesday night, July 20. Ending the rocket threat is deemed as important as the destruction of terror tunnels. Both projects continue apace as the IDF prepares for an order to terminate the ground stage of the Gaza operation. The air force brought forward the battlefield debut of the new Hermes 900 UAV, known as “Star,” to take advantage of its exceptional ability to perform surveillance and communication work at high altitudes while carrying a heavy weapons load.

Three Israeli soldiers were killed and 27 injured in the Gaza Strip Wednesday, July 30, the 23rd day of Israel’s counter-terror operation. The cabinet has decided to expand the Gaza mission. Maj. Gen. Sami Torjeman, OC Southern Command, told reporters that the soldiers had fought “stubbornly,” and “seriously impaired” Hamas’ strength. They had won every one of their direct engagements with Hamas. Hundreds of enemy fighters have been killed, including scores of Hamas’ elite troops and some of their commanders who were hunkered down in hideouts.

Despite the rush of diplomats and analysts declaring that an imminent ceasefire would soon stamp out the fighting in Gaza, the war refuses to end. They failed to reckon on the conflict acquiring a religious dimension and fresh impetus. Wednesday, July 30, as Israel’s longest and toughest war since the War of Independence, went into its 49th day, the commander of Hamas’ military wing, master-terrorist Mohammed Deif, proclaimed the Gaza conflict a religious jihad which soldiers “eager for death” would fight until victory and bring Israeli soldiers to “certain defeat.”